Targeted hacking attacks tipped to rise
Headline: Targeted hacking attacks tipped to rise:
The new breed of cybercriminals who develop sophisticated targeted attacks against specific businesses will continue to be a serious threat in 2006, MessageLabs warned this week.
In its 2005 Global Security Report, MessageLabs reported that it saw a significant increase in the number of targeted attacks on both organisations of all types in the last year.
These included attacks where Trojan horse programs were sent to a certain company’s employees with the aim of using spyware to steal information. This danger was highlighted in March of this year, when an alleged attempt to use spyware to steal 220m from Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui was thwarted.
MessageLabs said it is currently intercepting several targeted email attacks each week, and expects that data thieves may step up their activities next year.